(5) = Best; (4) = Better; (3) = Good; (2) = Fair; (1) = OK
These abstracts serve as reminders to myself; they serve to "jog" my memory on what a book was all about. That's all. This is not a literary critique, not a social commentary, and certainly nothing profound to warrant further discussion.
(5) = means that I really enjoyed this book; (1) = means I finished reading it but wonder if my time could have been better spent elsewhere.
David Baldacci never fails to entertain. The book continues on with the Camel Club team starring Oliver Stone, aka, John Carr. All the old characters return, viz., Annabel, Reuben, Caleb, AlexFord, and Harry Finn. Reference is made to Milton Farb, one of the club’s member who was killed in the last book. That story ended with Carter Gray shot as he rolled down the bullet proof window in his car to look at a grave marker and American flag by the side of the road. And there was a second murder as Senator Roger Simpson was shot. In this book, Joe Knox was hired by a three star general – Macklin Hayes – to find Oliver Stone. Joe’s only job was to find Oliver and report to Hayes - nothing else.
The book is all about Knoxes search and the adventures of Oliver in the town of Divine. Knox came to respect and admire Stone as he digs deeper and deeper into Stone’s life. He learns it was Hayes who denied the Medal of Honor to Stone; he realizes, finally, that Hayes’s intention ultimately was to kill Stone and rid the only man who can tie him to war crimes in the Vietnam war. Knox is in a dilemma; he decides to procrastinate and not reveal Oliver’s whereabouts to Hayes. Hayes decides to take matters into his own hands.
The subplot finds us in Divine, a coal mining town, in the middle of a Drug Trafficking operation run by the Chief Warden of the local prison; his guards ran the prison and the drug operation. Oliver befriends a couple of young men who eventually were killed; he discovers that several hunting accidents were shootings and not accidents, a young girl’s death was not a suicide, and he concludes they were all killed because they knew of the drug operation. Knox and the Camel Club gang eventually wind up in Divine. Knox and Oliver find themselves on the same team when the prison guards were caught loading drugs on to trucks and a gun battle ensued. I won’t say anymore. Suffice it to say, the subplot is as complicated as Oliver’s life. (5)
Powered by WordPress